Sunday, 28 October 2012

Squats, Squirts and Penguins

Yup, this is a post entirely about toilets. There is a some crass and tasteless picture, so don't proceed if squeamish.

Instructions in an Australian hotel room on how to use a western toilet, presumably aimed at Asian tourists

These instructions were in truck stop toilets on a stretch of highway between Nagoya and Tokyo

Japan’s
high-tech toilets are world famous. Madonna has one. Steven Colbert has one.
The pristine “washlet” senses when you enter the room and raises its lid
invitingly. Its seat is warmed and a deodoriser engages. The sound of running
water emerges, or, in some upscale department stores, piano concertos play.
When you have finished you are washed with warm water (pressure, temperature
and angle adjustable) and dried with warm air. A sensor tells the toilet to
flush when you stand up. The whole process is hands-free, hygienic and
soothing. Toilets are incorporated into cutting edge designs.

Then there are the squats. These vastly outnumber the
squirts and are not internationally renowned. I can’t imagine a celebrity
owning one. Squats are the most common public toilet. Train stations and parks
are equipped with them. Perhaps because these are places where drunks
congregate, or perhaps because daintier people avoid using public toilets in
the first place, they tend to be filthy. Like this.

Why I don't use public toilets in Japan

The idea is that they are more hygienic, because no part of
your body comes into contact with them. They aren’t. They
require a degree of skill and aim. They are very challenging if you are wearing
skinny jeans or multiple long layers. Or a coat. New houses are built with
western-style toilets, and have been for many years. Only the oldest farmhouses
still have squatters. However, public schools and kindergartens stubbornly
cling to Japanese-style toilets. This has exacerbated the stress children
experience when first attending school, as many of them have never used a
squatter and have to tackle it for the first time solo. According to Maria, the ancient Japanese used sticks to clean themselves. I am very glad that practice fell by the wayside at least.

Unless you have a fairly fancy or recently renovated home,
your toilet will probably look like this:

Toilet in our current house

No fancy features except that when
you flush, water flows into a basin above the cistern. Then, when you wash your
hands the soapy water flows through and helps clean the bowl. Water
conservation and hygiene all in one! There are any number of products available
to increase the appeal of your cistern –sink. We’ve gone with the toilet
penguin, seen here in action in our first apartment.

Coupled with Hello Kitty toilet paper and a Totoro hand
towel, every trip to the bog becomes a kawaii adventure.

Don't know how I missed this when you first posted, sorry! Yes, I have heard all sorts of things about sqautters being good... but I still don't like them ;)About those squatty potty things, surely you could get the same effect with a family pack of toilet rolls?

I loved Japanese toilets - and with a baby in a carrier, I especially miss the little fold down seats for babies in the Japanese public cubicles - to put baby in while Mom is busy. Oh! And the best family/disabled washrooms anywhere in the world, with fold down beds! Our 5 year old especially enjoyed to self-cleaning options with front and back spray.

PS have you written about another neat Japanese reality: the lack of public garbage cans? And yet everything is tidy...

There is much to love about (clean) public toilets here: the child seat, the mini urinals and sinks for kids and my personal favourite, the fold down platform to stand on if you need to change your clothes and don't want to stand on the floor in your socks!

I haven't written about rubbish bins largely because This Japanese Life did such a great post about them: http://thisjapaneselife.org/2012/02/08/trash-cans-in-japan/